Law Department Management Blog
By contributing author Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently released its annual Lawsuit Climate study, where they ask in-house counsel to rank the states based on “how reasonable and balanced the tort liability systems is perceived to be by U.S. business.”
Not surprisingly, Delaware came out on top and Mississippi and West Virginia brought up the rear. For legal service providers hoping to better understand their clients’ biggest concerns—as opposed to the tactical issues usually supported by service providers—there is a wealth of information in this study. Especially useful is the companion PowerPoint presentation, which tells us, “Nearly six out of 10 (senior attorneys) report that the litigation environment in a state could affect important business decisions…”
The overall desire of respondents is to limit discovery. Four percent of respondents, without prompting, said that “Limits on discovery” is the most important (litigation-related) issue for state policymakers who care about economic development to focus on, although they were probably not considering the economic development of e-discovery companies.